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Does server location (IP) help with international SEO?

If I have a .com.br domain with all my content in Portuguese, will it make a difference if I host in the US or if I host on a server in Brazil?

I thought I had the answer to this from Rand in one of his Whiteboard Fridays a while back where he said hosting in the target country would help, but the lady who did the international SEO presentation in MozCon 2011 said any SEO who says this helps doesn't know international SEO. Can anybody point me to a case study on this?

I have US and Brazilian dedicated servers but I'd prefer to get rid of the Brazil server expense.

"Server location (through the IP address of the server) is frequently near your users. However, some websites use distributed content delivery networks (CDNs) or are hosted in a country with better webserver infrastructure, so we try not to rely on the server location alone."

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